The Muslim Question in Canada

Considering that in the 2015 Federal Election, candidates were often talking about Muslims and their relationship to Canada, whether from an empathetic and supportive position or from a negative and racist position, Kazemipur’s book could not be more welcome and timely. While many of us in the Musl...

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Autor principal: Katherine Bullock
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2016
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/2945da51e5174b6cb6ed66760386ffc3
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:2945da51e5174b6cb6ed66760386ffc32021-12-02T17:26:27ZThe Muslim Question in Canada10.35632/ajis.v33i3.9272690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/2945da51e5174b6cb6ed66760386ffc32016-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/927https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 Considering that in the 2015 Federal Election, candidates were often talking about Muslims and their relationship to Canada, whether from an empathetic and supportive position or from a negative and racist position, Kazemipur’s book could not be more welcome and timely. While many of us in the Muslim community wish we were not part of a “question” that needed debating and discussing, Kazemipur’s title is, regrettably, very consciously and aptly chosen, for it refers back to the debates in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century about the “Jewish Question.” The author notes, as others have, that contemporary debates about “illiberal Muslims” with strange customs who cannot and will not “integrate” into Canadian society mirror those about Jews in that era (pp. 7-8), and proposes to study this particular community through a much needed sociological lens. The book is very well-written, accessible, methodologically and theoretically sophisticated, and enormously useful – anyone who wants to talk about the Muslim experience in Canada will find it insightful and indispensable for coming to terms with day-to-day realities of those experiences. Kazemipur rightly points out that this “Muslim” question is not fruitfully approached through the paradigm proposed by Samuel Huntington and likeminded scholars, namely, “culture,” which forms the basis of a “Muslim exceptionalism” (p. 5) and explains the “inability” of Muslims to integrate into western democracies. This approach, he argues, “grossly oversimplifies a Book Reviews 127 complex and multifaceted problem” and “removes the possibility that the mainstream population might have to take some moral responsibility for it” (p. 5). Integration is a relationship among different peoples. Thus he also points out, although not until the end of the book, that trying to understand these Muslims’ situation by focusing upon Islamic theology is less useful than ... Katherine BullockInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 33, Iss 3 (2016)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Islam
BP1-253
spellingShingle Islam
BP1-253
Katherine Bullock
The Muslim Question in Canada
description Considering that in the 2015 Federal Election, candidates were often talking about Muslims and their relationship to Canada, whether from an empathetic and supportive position or from a negative and racist position, Kazemipur’s book could not be more welcome and timely. While many of us in the Muslim community wish we were not part of a “question” that needed debating and discussing, Kazemipur’s title is, regrettably, very consciously and aptly chosen, for it refers back to the debates in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century about the “Jewish Question.” The author notes, as others have, that contemporary debates about “illiberal Muslims” with strange customs who cannot and will not “integrate” into Canadian society mirror those about Jews in that era (pp. 7-8), and proposes to study this particular community through a much needed sociological lens. The book is very well-written, accessible, methodologically and theoretically sophisticated, and enormously useful – anyone who wants to talk about the Muslim experience in Canada will find it insightful and indispensable for coming to terms with day-to-day realities of those experiences. Kazemipur rightly points out that this “Muslim” question is not fruitfully approached through the paradigm proposed by Samuel Huntington and likeminded scholars, namely, “culture,” which forms the basis of a “Muslim exceptionalism” (p. 5) and explains the “inability” of Muslims to integrate into western democracies. This approach, he argues, “grossly oversimplifies a Book Reviews 127 complex and multifaceted problem” and “removes the possibility that the mainstream population might have to take some moral responsibility for it” (p. 5). Integration is a relationship among different peoples. Thus he also points out, although not until the end of the book, that trying to understand these Muslims’ situation by focusing upon Islamic theology is less useful than ...
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author Katherine Bullock
author_facet Katherine Bullock
author_sort Katherine Bullock
title The Muslim Question in Canada
title_short The Muslim Question in Canada
title_full The Muslim Question in Canada
title_fullStr The Muslim Question in Canada
title_full_unstemmed The Muslim Question in Canada
title_sort muslim question in canada
publisher International Institute of Islamic Thought
publishDate 2016
url https://doaj.org/article/2945da51e5174b6cb6ed66760386ffc3
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